What would fan reaction have been had we held onto Winnall, Hourihane, Scowen, Bree & Watkins, finished in mid table, and only receiving a token fee for Bree from a tribunal, missing out on significant fees?
I dont get the views of some on here at all, Winnall wanted to go and was being, allegedly, a disruptive influence in the dressing room He was either going to go for free in the summer, if we insisted on keeping him we would have had an unmotivated player marking time for 3 months - or we could sell him and get some cash to use to fund a replacement who did want to be here. The fact that we misspent the cash is a different matter entirely
For what it's worth in my opinion the Bree sale was worth it - the most replaceable of the players we had of those with a price. If I remember correctly Patrick did say at the start of the season we had no need to have a fire sale in January.
That's what still rankles. If we were on the fringes of relegation we wouldn't have sold them, but as we were effectively safe we decided to take the cash. We were prepared to gamble on keeping them to battle to stay in the division, but not to try and get promoted despite the potential rewards being much, much greater. It showed a stunning lack of ambition and was incredibly frustrating. We were incredibly lucky in assembling that squad, and we are unlikely to get the same opportunity any time soon.
Nobody would have wanted those players if we hadn't over achieed though. Winnall forced the move and made it clear to everyone he did not want to play for us no more. He had the strip on for a while villa at home he came on as a sub scored and the didn't celebrate his last game blackpool away in cup he didn't come over to the 3500k fans and clap he was the 1st player off the pitch. I think even if we would of matched what Wednesday offered him he would of gone his mind was made up. And then we had lost our top scorer so playoffs were looking slim to reach never mind win.
It’d have been mixed on here. Some would try & rewrite history & claim it was the wrong strategy all along & some like myself would’ve admitted to been wrong but probably still believe it was worth the gamble
And you could well have been right, we’ll never know. Like I say it would’ve been a gamble but for me that chance comes around once in a generation. It’s the first time since 2000 that we’ve been anywhere near promotion to the premier league. Who knows how long it’ll be to the next chance, especially with how the championships turning into a second premier league for about half of the teams in the league with the budgets they have. I just think with the massive profits we’d made through Stones & Mawson the risk was worth taking that season
Spot on Farnham, and anybody who went to Blackpool for the FA Cup tie would agree. Winnall didn't even break sweat and played with the sole intention of not getting himself injured.
And I think that's why some probably fancied a gamble. Multi millions is a hell of a gamble though and I can fully understand the clubs decision to allow want away players to go for fees to be reinvested.
Yes I was there he was also the first one off the field and didn't acknowledge the travelling fans. Easy saying make him stay and see out his contract but in reality he didn't want to be here didn't give a toss about the club or fans and was abit of a bellend
We keep players who would rather be somewhere else the whole time. Neil Redfearn for the first 2 years he was at Oakwell was agitating for a move. Any of our team. Every single one would be off given a better offer. We had the opportunity to progress we took the money instead. It was a poor decision as our current situation process.
I just think that hindsight is a wonderful thing , despite all of us having strong opinions about the events of that january , none of us are privy to what went of behind closed doors at Oakwell & none of us had to make the crucial decisions , easy sat at home being wise after the event
Are you a business man? You say we should have gave Sam winnall what he wanted in money terms. Even if he would have stayed if we offered him but you don't know he would. But it' ridiculous to say we should have matched the 19k a week Wednesday gave him, at the time Leeds were only paying their top earner chris wood around the same 19k. Easy to say pay winnall 19k give Conor 27k what he gets at villa same with Marley bree and the rest without taking into consideration of the running costs of a football club.
No I didn’t. I have run my own business fairly successfully. I didn’t say offer Winnall a new contract. I said hold him to the one he had signed. It’s not hard to understand. If we had got in the play offs and gone up we would have wanted shut anyway. The money we received was irrelevant given we spent that and more on Mowatt who flopped.
Well in your first post you did say I'd of gave him whatever he wanted to stay.... I'd imagine the only thing that could have made him stay was more money than Wednesday were going to give him but for us it isn't realistic to give those amounts to players unfortunately. In that situation again with the new owners things maybee would be diffrent who knows.
Problem is a fair proportion of the team already wanted to leave in Jan. Hourihane, Winnall, Watkins, Bree. We were on a hiding to nothing keeping a sulking bunch of players who would have moved on anyway in July the majority on free transfers and with no income into the team.
The money was mostly wasted anyway so would have been better ‘spent’ on using our momentum to get into the play offs. Watkins didn’t sulk and neither would Bree or Conor. We would have been better sticking Winnall in the reserves than using the money to buy Mowatt and committing to 3 years worth of wages. Mel Machin once told me that Redfearn asked him every day for a move during one period he just told him no and the board backed him.
My solution would’ve been to offer them large promotion bonuses to try & keep them from sulking. From what I saw of them I don’t believe Hourihane, Watkins, Scowen, Bree were the type to kick up a fuss & sulk. Winnall possibly but when he realised that he’d be out of the team & two of Watkins, Bradshaw & Armstrong would’ve been getting games ahead of him whilst his value dropped he’d have soon stopped sulking
Sorry that was my rushed typing. What I meant to say was “I would have kept him. Whatever he wanted” meaning refused to transfer him not give him more money. Can see how that’s what you read into it.
Hourihane went to PC and asked him to let him leave for Villa. PC loved Hourihane but saw no value in keeping him here when he wanted to go.